10 YEARS OF DOOM
All this messing with NetHack and I almost forgot it's 10 years since the day I got my first copy of Doom (well, Doom 2) today.
For some unrelated reason I'd taken my computer to the house of a guy I knew at primary school, who'd in 1995 showed me the game, which I suppose was at the height of its popularity. I remembered he had a level editor for it as well, and as I was in the summer between A-levels and university, looking for shit to do, and by 1997 I had a computer that could run DOS stuff under "emulation".
Of course after about a week, only having played through the first 8 levels, I managed to corrupt the IWAD. Don't ask me how. I ran a program and it turned out to be broken. Anyway it took a few months to get another copy.
I didn't get chance to play it again until Christmas. I slowly played through, one level at a time, eventually finishing it. I also followed it up with a godmode run on the hardest skill level, just so I could see it with the full numbers of monsters in. All this was finished by early January 1998, whereupon I said, yeah, that was all right, but whatever, let's do something else now.
DEVELOPING AN INTEREST
One night in March 1998, while on one of my infrequent trips as a dropout to the university computer lab, I found a copy of a program called DeHackEd. This allowed you to mess around with the game's internals by editing the actual executable file. I also found the UDS, an inspirational document which described much of these internals, and the map format. At that point Doom went from being a game I could play, to a game I could play with.*
I made the lesser spotted marauding barrel, which shuffled round the map, snuck up on you and exploded. I sped the guns up slightly and could play the game on Ultra-Violence skill without having to use god mode. I recall realising, after about a month, that I wasn't doing much else with the computer besides Doom stuff. All other projects were being neglected. I'd become obsessed.
* Needless to say the level editing thing hadn't worked out. The editor was a pile of shit. I still haven't found a map editor I don't hate.
SCIENCE
After this I started doing all kinds of experiments to find out limits and properties of the game. The range of a bullet, the range of the BFG cone effect, the range of autoaim, relationship between the dehacked variable "missile damage" and the amount of damage done**, relationship between monster hit points and the player's health, and so on.
I also worked out much of the format of a saved game file. I could fire a BFG shot across a room, save the game, and hack it so the BFG shot was dark red and travelling so slowly you could hardly see it move.
The stupid part here was that, by then, the source was available, so all my work was pointless. However, I didn't know this, and being away from university and the internet I had no way of finding out.
** I remember being disappointed to realise that there's no real difference between an imp's fireball and a baron's nukage-throwing other than the amount of damage it does.
THE ULTIMATE DOOM
I finally acquired the original Doom and its ill-fitting fourth episode in July 1998. This convinced me to stop using the sped-up weapons patch, as it relied on stuff in the Doom 2 IWAD and caused Doom to crash. Also, as I found out, Doom is easier than Doom 2, and I could do without it (although, some of episode 4...)
As we move through the rest of 1998, and into 1999, the PWADs and source ports eras began. That's a whole other thing so this is a good place to stop.
More of those maps from last time
Decadence Highly detailed techbase map, with a dark and oppressive atmosphere. Well, that's one way of looking at it. Another is it's a bunch of hyperdetailed corridors. The monster density is low, but so is ammunition. It reminds me of Hellcore 2.0 in a way. The big fight at the end was frustrating, and I didn't bother to finish it before diving for the exit.
In A World Another Chris Hansen map, this time an attempt to mimic Doom 2's rather mixed texturing scheme, so it's pretty messy, but deliberately so. This map goes on forever and is quite difficult, and there's more than a couple of annoying bits, but I really like how it all connects together - this is one of Hansen's definite strengths as a mapper - and the final third of the map makes it worth it. Just could do with more ammunition...
Reanimated Two maps from the brothers Abharim who made such things as Congestion Control.
- The first is deceptively hard as you quickly get both shotguns and max out your ammo. But there are some nasty monsters around and they can close you down quickly. Also I was slightly lost, I didn't realise that you have to throw yourself into the tunnel under the red key having gone through the blue bars. There are lots of traps, and this is one of those maps where it's better to know where they are, and set them off in a controlled manner.
- The second, a dark techbase, is shorter, but still sharp. Once again hindsight is probably necessary, you can't just barge around the map and not get overwhelmed. Set the traps off when you're ready to do so, and make use of the rather arbitrarily-placed monster-impassible linedefs.
Summary: decent wad if you can ignore the authors' fondness for Linkin Park!
Azagthoth 12 maps of old school style action! This is a wad by a first-time mapper who starts out showing a great deal of promise but I think he runs out of ideas and reverts to rooms and halls by the end. Most of these maps are easy and I did them from a pistol start on the first attempt. Map02 is probably the best one. There are a few mistakes like monsters in void space and an obvious misunderstanding of the way the linedef/sector tagging system works.
BloodRust 11 small detailed techbases and one secret castle-style map. Mostly under 100 monsters, although the later ones start to increase in size. I'm not sure what port this is intended for as a couple of places seem to require jumping. Map10 especially has a couple of bugs, a door that doesn't open and some apparently deliberate false walls inside of another door. I don't know. I haven't yet finished the last two maps, I'm stuck at the start of the final one, with no ammunition. This wad is good, but there is evidence of lack of testing, and I'm not sure.
I downloaded a bunch of maps (I was looking for something, didn't find it) Here are some of them:
Waste Site
All right we start off with a base/canyon style map. No new textures except the episode 4 sky is used, which goes fairly well with the theme, which is mostly tan.
There's no particular flow to the map's theme, it randomly alternates between indoor and outdoor; I don't know if it's supposed to be a partially destroyed base that's open to the air. It doesn't really matter.
As you play through the map you will be struck by its homogeneity. It's very linear, and repeats the same constructions all the way through. In particular it has a bizarre line in floating lights over outdoor areas, and also putting monsters in corridors on top of single-use teleporters that put the thing behind you. Oh and hellknights. There are an abundance of hellknights.
The gameplay is rather frustrating. Ammunition is very low throughout, and if you don't find the berserk secret I think you'd have a very hard time getting through this at all. Even with the berserk I barely finished. Health is also low. On a couple of occasions I had to backtrack nearly the entire length of the level just for a couple of stimpaks, which took ages.
To sum up this is a decent if somewhat odd map. It looks good, but it's too linear, low on resources, and can be frustrating. A great map would look like this but be more compact and cohesive, and less repetitive with the monsters.
Links: Waste Site
Option: Denied
Two maps that are actually by the same author as Waste Site but are fortunately very different in their gameplay. Similar level of detail, although as it's all indoors there's no weird floating lights this time.
The first map is very symmetrical, but the second is a decent layout with just the right amount of backtracking and interconnection. The difficulty level is low, both maps can be completed easily, and if you do them as a mission run you'll end up with more shells than you'll know what to do with.
Detail level is high, although I'd prefer a better layout to detail. There's a new sky texture, a black night with a few stars, but it appears to be riddled with compression artifacts. Fortunately you don't notice it much. There's 5 monsters on map 2 in a teleporter that are deaf and so they never come out. Apart from that these are a decent set of maps and I can recommend them.
Links: Option: Denied
Tien
A tiny map which I admittedly only played as its author also made CC2 map 11 and NDCP map 8, both of which have a certain indefinable quality that makes them great. This one must be an earlier construction, as it's pretty rubbish really. Just a few brightly lit tunnels and demon faces. Also it's riddled with ZDoomisms (nothing rboom can't handle, in fact I almost didn't notice the error reports)
Oh I just re-read the text file and apparently it's supposed to be an attempt at a "10 sectors" map; that explains the size (or does it, I mean, 10 sectors maps can be huge, look at the results of the contest) but doesn't explain the bugs.
Links: Tien
Phobos Orbital
Another small map on a space station; offers many views of a starry sky, and very little in the way of resistance. Decent minimal architecture, a dark grey metal and silver theme texture theme for the most part. There was this one corridor that seemed a bit featureless; for some reason that stood out. Never mind though.
You have to backtrack rather a lot, you go up one side to get the blue key, then come back and up the other side, then back round again. The best bit is when you teleport to some kind of other station and there's the hell anomaly, and you have to rescue a key from it and come back. I like that kind of map.
It's not hard, the monster density is very low, and even the increased resistance at the anomaly is easily managable. There is a tendency to have accidents with revenants in a couple of other places though so be careful. In summary, pretty good for 5-10 minutes play.
Links: Phobos Orbital
Twisted Tower of Death
This is a bricks and metal style map that is reminiscent of maps from Requiem, especially as it centres around a triple-layer 3d bridge. You travel round the rooms surrounding the central courtyard, gradually ascending. Monsters teleport in as you go, yadda yadda.
The architecture and texturing is pretty much perfect, no problems there, but the gameplay is quite annoying, as you are often fighting lots of monsters in a very cramped amount of space. This is mostly evident in the final room with blue key; the volume of monsters that teleport in is just too much for the room, and you can't avoid taking so much damage that you're basically screwed. On the other hand there was a blue armour earlier in the level that I missed, so perhaps going in there with 150+ health and armour would have allowed me to survive whereas only 150+ health was not enough. However I might not bother because it's annoying!
Links: Twisted Tower of Death
